Meet BT Business' new online director Jennifer Mowat
Posted 8 January 2007 at 4:21PM by Alexa Williamson in Doing business online
A recent survey by BT has shown us that you've become steadily more satisfied with BT Broadband office services over the past three months. New online director Jennifer Mowat has no doubt helped to achieve this.
Jennifer has worked at a number of high profile websites during her career including eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon. I was able to catch up with her recently and find out how how she plans to use her experience to help BT Business customers make their business flourish online.
What does your new role with BT Business (BTB) involve?
As Online Director for BTB I report into Bill Murphy who runs BT Business. My role is quite simply to provide the best possible online experience for our customers. This is made up of a number of parts, including: driving sales and service transactions online and working across the BT retail business to ensure we use the best technologies available to help our customers. In addition as BT take on more web-based projects, to use the expertise the team has to ensure these get to market fast, on budget and delivering what our customers need.
What will you do to help improve the online experience for our customers?
Having had experience in a number of online businesses, I have the knowledge of a number of different 'pure play' environments and good market knowledge of what's out there and what BT can use to make a better online experience for our customers. I also fervently believe in the BT focus on the customer and have a particular interest in the SME marketplace, so for me it's a closely aligned fit right now.
Tell us a bit about what you have done prior to BT?
Having been in the online industry for a number of years, I've worked for a few of the bigger brands including eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon. All very different platforms and technology, but also companies very keen to ensure they provide the ultimate customer experience. It all looks pretty good as a user, as we know, but behind most good websites is a very hard-working and skilled team. I've been very lucky to have worked in these quite different companies and have had a very solid learning experience from it.
What has been the highlight of your career to date?
Other than getting the role at BT? (smile) The most obvious one is seeing the company I joined as a start-up in the UK become a household name in a matter of years. Along the way however, I've learnt a huge amount about a vast number of businesses and have been privileged to see how, with technology driven things like trading platforms and community sites, people from around the world can trade, connect, or just belong to and interact with different groups.
The thing we forget is that all of these sites haven't replaced real life, but they have extended the boundaries of contact that wouldn't be possible without the Internet.
What attracted you to BT Business?
I have a particular interest in the SME market and how small businesses trade. BT today offers a host of products and services that can revolutionise the way small companies do business. It doesn't matter what kind of business you run, BT can help with all of your ICT needs and provide products and services to help you make sure you make the most of your sales time. For example - if only the IT Support Manager package had been around a few years ago - I'd have used it myself instead of waiting days for someone to come and help my fix what is usually a basic problem!
The key thing is that BT is a trusted brand and is in a great position to help all those small businesses out there not just survive but flourish. I want to be part of that next generation growth in the UK economy and I think BT Business is the place to be able to do that.
How do you see the use of the Internet developing over the next few years for small business?
It's all about connecting buyers and sellers and communities together. We all want to get expert advice or at least garner many opinions about the best ways to do things or to find customers or even just to contact each other. The Internet is a global communications platform and with the right tools small businesses needn't rely on just print advertising or the footfall outside their shops. Businesses can have customers from as far a field as they are prepared to do business in. The tools that are available over the Internet also make it easy to manage all of the admin of running a business - from things like hosting email to having sales people on the road constantly up-to-date with downloadable customer contact details and presentations etc. Paper isn't dead - but it's getting a bit out-of-date!
In your opinion, what is the single most important thing a small business should consider when writing their online strategy?
The single most important thing is to think about 'who is my customer and how can I make this work for them?' If your customer likes what you are doing online, and it means more business for you, then it's a win win situation. There's no point having a beautiful website with all the bells and whistles on it if you don't tell your customers it's there. It's also no good if you have it and your customers want to interact with you via that website and you never answer any of the queries they email you! Ultimately each business needs to decide what they need from an online channel, what their customers want and then weighing that up - can they do it profitably!
Tags: BT Business Online, Jennifer Mowat
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